Daniel Higgins, Melissa Alden candidates for Cape district attorney
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With this election being the first in two decades without an incumbent district attorney in the running, the race welcomes two more candidates — creating a party of four.
Daniel Higgins, assistant district attorney for the Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office; and Melissa Alden, a former Yarmouth police officer and current family and elder law attorney, will announce their campaigns this week, joining criminal defense attorney Robert Galibois and Republican John “Jack” Carey, of East Sandwich, who announced their campaigns in January.
For Higgins, who has worked in the Cape and Island District Attorney’s Office for about 12 years, it was his “long-standing belief in public service,” that motivated his run for office.
Get to know Daniel Higgins
“I believe that the people of the Cape and Islands deserve an experienced prosecutor, who has devoted his entire career to the protection and safety of the citizens of the Cape and Islands,” Higgins said. “I think the people deserve someone who has the experience leading the many professionals of the Cape and islands DA’s office.”
Joining the Suffolk District Attorney’s office straight out of Suffolk University Law School as a student prosecutor, Higgins, whose parents were both members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, eventually became a full-time prosecutor at the Cape and Island’s District Attorney’s Office in 2009. He rose to the rank of chief district court prosecutor. In that role, he supervised 10 assistant district attorneys and managed five district courts across the Cape.
Throughout his time in that position, Higgins was also involved with high-profile cases such as the Thomas Latanowich trial, which was conducted in August 2021; and the Denzel Chisholm murder trial team.
Should Higgins be elected, he said he will “ensure that the office continues the mission of seeking justice with fairness and accountability to the public.”
Get to know Melissa Alden
Although she isn’t a part of the current district attorney administration, Melissa Alden, who moved to the Cape from Sarasota, Florida in 1999, began her career at the Yarmouth Police Department — first in the records department in 2004, and then later as financial assistant to Yarmouth Police Chief Joseph Cairns through 2005.
Alden graduated from the police academy in November 2006, and then attended the Southern New England School of Law, now known as University of Massachusetts Law, graduating in 2008 and passing the bar exam in 2009.
Earning her master’s in law from New England University School of Law in 2020, Alden began practicing family and elder law, and was also vice president of the Independence House, Inc. board from 2011 to 2017. In addition, Alden became certified by the Committee for Public Counsel Services to handle mental health cases and children and family law matters, which included guardianship issues and guardianship incapacity.
With her “unique background,” as a former police officer and an attorney, Alden said she hopes to continue to make an impact “on the safety of the community.”
“I’ve seen my children, family members and friends, affected by different crimes and I want them (voters) to know that I’m entrenched in this community. I want them to know that I’m willing to listen to their concerns and work on solutions that I can effectuate as the district attorney,” she said. “I want people to know that I’m approachable and ready to bring creative solutions to our community. I want to make it a stronger and healthier place.”
Throughout her time as a police officer, Alden said she saw “the explosion of the opioid crisis,” firsthand.
“We were responding to calls daily and seeing overdoses with a lot of young adults and teenagers, passing away from that. We were seeing the effects on the family, their friends and the community,” she said. “I started working with the crisis intervention team to reach out for mental health issues and substance use issues. We would collaborate.”
Throughout that experience, Alden said she became a “firm believer,” in establishing services for victims, but also understands the frustration that law enforcement has as they try to conduct their jobs “with integrity.”
“I do also understand the need for accountability for those that don’t. But I do believe that having a strong community, means we need to take care of our law enforcement. We need to care of our first responders who are dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues on a daily basis,” she said.
What else do Higgins, Alden believe in?
Spending more than a decade alongside current District Attorney Michael O’Keefe, Higgins said it’s always been the “mission of the district attorney’s office” to “do the right thing.” — especially in cases where people can be diverted away from the criminal justice system through juvenile or adult diversion, pre-trial probation, or the Valor Act, which is now known as the Brave Act.
“There are ways we can help people who have made mistakes and shouldn’t have a criminal record because of a single mistake, and we can divert people away and get them treatment and keep them out of the system, which is often our goal,” he said. “Sometimes that means that the prosecutor has the ability to not arraign them and to see if they would accept a diversionary program, whether that’s drug treatment, or mental health counseling. Or whether that would be working with the Veterans Administration in the case of a veteran. The goal is always public safety.”
More:Get to know Robert Galibois and John Carey
But in the case of serious violent crimes, Higgins said “justice can mean something different.”
“It means prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law to protect the public from those serious crimes,” he said. “I don’t believe that we should make policies of what crimes should or shouldn’t be prosecuted, but rather we should treat everyone as an individual and look at it through the lens of what is best for the public and this person.”
In terms of specific “non-prosecuting policies,” Alden agreed with Higgins and said current district attorney O’Keefe has “done a great job implementing programs.” And while she will be “aggressive with the violent crimes” she said “diversion is necessary.”
More:District attorney Michael O’Keefe will not seek sixth term
“The discretion held by the district attorney should be used in determining whether to have (sentence) enhancement, bails, and plea bargains,” she said. “But what needs to happen first, is a lot of conversations — further using my connections I already have within this community, as to what alternatives are available and where the money needs to go. We have legislation that’s in place that tells us what we’re supposed to charge and what the punishments are for those charges. But we don’t have legislations for victims in the community. Some of those victims that are suffering from mental health illness and substance use disorder and not having the available resources to help them.”
Although Higgins didn’t immediately speak on disproportionate race data within the criminal justice system, which has been a subject of contention for Cape-area voters, he said he may address the topic later in his campaign.
More:Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe calls auditor’s statement ‘misleading’
“I would say that it’s always important to look at information if it exists and to make sure that people are being treated fairly,” Higgins said. “I think that would be the goal of any prosecutor. And I would ensure that we are treating people fairly, but the data has to exist and then we would need to interpret it.”
Alden was also hesitant to comment on the topic of racial justice within the Massachusetts state criminal justice system but said she’s open to talk about the issue.
“We know that there are different ways of collecting data. We know that different agencies do that and that’s the conversation I would need to have,” she said. “I’m the type of person to schedule a call and have a conversation. I’m not opposed to listening to and hearing discourse.”
Who does Michael O’Keefe support?
As the four candidates continue to speak on a plethora of issues regarding the election of the next district attorney, O’Keefe is happy to see Higgins “willing to undertake” the responsibility of being the next Cape and Island’s district attorney — although he said he’s holding his endorsement — for now.
“Endorsements are great, but, in the end, the candidate has to make his case to the voters and the voters on the Cape are very wise and they will make the right decision as to who they want,” O’Keefe said. “As the district attorney, at the appropriate time, I’ll certainly make it clear who I think should be the DA.”
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